Tightly plotted and well acted, I was surprised by the depth I found in How To Make It In America – which I feared would be yet another Entourage (everything works out and is perfect by the end of the episode!) knock off. I enjoyed the first season or two of Entourage, but it quickly became (perhaps deliberately, perhaps because it’s just SO in love with itself) a show about everything working out perfectly, and about a life that a select few have (or would want as far as I’m concerned). A sadly shallow arrogant kind of show that treats women primarily as objects to be traded and shows pretty terrible things about its characters with an almost gross pride. How To Make It In America, really has very little of that so far, and it pleasantly surprised me several times in the premiere episode.
The first surprise came in the form of Bryan Greenberg, playing protagonist Ben. I haven’t been a huge fan of Greenberg in the past, generally feeling like he is a little too taken with how charming he is, in shows like Unscripted (good show) and movies like Prime (which despite the presence of Meryl Streep is not a good movie) but here he seems almost perfectly cast. As a guy that was expected by many to ‘really be somebody someday’, his belief in his own charm works well and since the character has not actually found any kind of success yet and is actually wallowing in failure and at this point in his life has almost given up on success, I found that charm, well, charming again. He’s that guy that at one time in his life, things probably came very easily too, but as he gets older without any measure of true success, things have become harder, and he himself has come to accept the realities of life…of his own life…which is pretty mediocre and not what he expected.
One of Ben’s two great moments in this first episode, Paper, Denim, & Dollars, is when he tries to get the girl (not “the girl” but “a girl”) and thinks it’s a done deal (despite making little to no effort) when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under him in a realistic and funny way. A way that too many of us, on the verge of sexual conquest, have experienced. And the realism in that moment reminded me of everything that is wrong with Entourage, and everything that is so far going right with How To Make It In America.
The set up for the series is that Ben and his friend (and partner in crime) Cam (played with enthusiasm by Victor Rasuk of Raising Victor Vargas fame) are trying to get rich and famous in New York City…pretty much by any means available to them. The episode suggests that they are not above trying anything, and that despite their possibly considerable talents (Ben is/was an artist, while Cam seems to be more a jack of all trades, master of nothing type that focuses primarily on his charisma, salesmanship, and wit) they have failed time and again to make anything happen for themselves.
In this first episode we learn that Ben has settled and taken a “real” job working for Barney’s, while Cam has not yet given up on ‘making it’ and involves himself with whatever scam he can manage, usually dragging Ben along with him. It’s easy to see that Ben is losing his drive and has been badly burned by a past venture designing skateboards for a famous skater that has disappeared. Ben has taken the skater’s disappearance personally, and as a comment on his design being bad, and the result is not just a loss of investment, and boxes of unsold decks all over his apartment, but a huge set back in confidence.
Rasuk’s energy on the screen is contagious and it makes Cam a great friend and almost foil to Ben’s more burned out introspective type. But in the end they keep coming back together through their mutual desire for success and to ‘be something’ or maybe more to the point ‘someone’.
Also surprising to me was the introduction of Eddie Kay Thomas as David, an old classmate of Ben’s that was a loser in high school and still is, except he’s made it rich off of a hedge fund job, and has turned into, as far as I’m concerned, a pretty interesting layered guy. They could have gone with the stereotypical nerd that makes good and wants to punish those around him that were “better than him” in high school, but instead David comes off as pretty self aware, as a fan of Ben’s from way back who is interested in him in both genuine and shallow ways. A nice guy that isn’t totally faking it and isn’t afraid to admit that the gorgeous girl Ben first saw him with was in fact a professional, rather than lying to make himself seem like ‘more than he is’. It’s a far more interesting take on what is usually a pretty stock character (and story arc), and Thomas plays it well.
Other than Ben and Cam, the real star is the city of New York. This episode, and I suspect future episodes, utilizes New York at its best – showing off all the different aspects of what makes this city great. Not unlike Bored To Death, in How To Make It In America, the easiest character to fall in love with is the city itself.
There were a few moments in the episode that felt a bit false to me specifically some of the ‘too cool’ dialogue and in what I thought was a fairly shallow and stereotypical portrayal of race. I’m not a huge fan of the idea that Rasuk’s uncle Rene played by Luis Guzman comes off as such a bad guy here, although there is room for that to be explored and made less black and white as the series progresses. However I can certainly forgive a few false notes in an otherwise pretty tight pilot episode.
Ben’s arc really managed pull me in at the end of the episode, when he decides to face his fears and give another project a try with Cam, by asking Cam’s uncle Rene for a loan to get the new project started. Greenberg plays the scene well. There’s a wounded moment from him when Rene insults his work on the last project (the failed skateboard decks) and then you can see him dig deep for the reserves of his will and self confidence and ask for the money to start the new project.
The episode ends on a high note, with Ben and Cam off to start their new project, young and full of energy and potential, but living pretty low on the food chain and desperate to climb up. This episode showed the makings of a good little series if handled well. The stakes are all in place, the characters are interesting enough that I’m curious for more, and New York City is the perfect canvas for it all to be played out on.
How To Make It In America airs Sundays on HBO at 10:00pm.
The premiere episode was Sunday, February 14th and you can watch it online here if you missed it. It’s also available On Demand (where available), and knowing HBO, will be shown many more times throughout the week if you’re interested in hunting it down.
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Kelly is a freelance writer and artist living in New York who is relatively obsessed with comics and feminism, which generally make horrible bedfellows and explains a lot of her recurring headaches. You can read her rantings about such things at: http://1979semifinalist.wordpress.com